


When the moon was made of cheese

by Ischa



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2011-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:58:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>De-aging fic in which Jim ages one year per day and will stop at his own age.<br/><i>“You will not die...Jim,” Spock says. Jim catches the split second of hesitation before his name. Like Spock doesn't usually call him that. He wondered about it before but not enough to ask about it, even now.<br/>“We all die, Spock. Life is killing us.” His eyes are still closed.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	When the moon was made of cheese

**Title:** When the moon was made of cheese  
 **Pairing:**  gen (with Jim/Uhura, Jim/Spock)  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Summary:** De-aging fic in which Jim ages one year per day and will stop at his own age.  
 _“You will not die...Jim,” Spock says. Jim catches the split second of hesitation before his name. Like Spock doesn't usually call him that. He wondered about it before but not enough to ask about it, even now.  
“We all die, Spock. Life is killing us.” His eyes are still closed._  
 **Warning(s):** none  
 **Author’s Notes:** Honestly, I just wanted to write something with that title. I'm that easy.    
 **Word Count:** 3.726  
  **Beta:** tygermine  
  **Disclaimer:** Don’t know, don’t own, not real

\--+--  
>~0~  
This is what Bones knows (and it isn't much or new):  
A mission gone somehow terribly wrong. And now his captain is a child, not even one year old. The thing (maybe a plant, maybe a rock, maybe...what the hell ever) that caused it is unknown to him. The natives don't talk about it and it's all very hush hush.  
Bones fucking loves hush hush.  
Another fact: Jim ages one year per day and will stop at his own age...which leaves them with no captain for 24 days more or less.  
That's all Bones knows.

Here is what he doesn't know, just a list in no particular order:  
How Jim got infected. It would be useful to prevent the rest of the crew from catching it.  
How to fight it. Because Jim is not even one and the nurses are all over him...  
If he will remember anything from this second life lived in fast forward. Bones doesn't even want to think about what that could do to Jim – or the crew.  
If you see it that way, maybe the whole hush hush approach isn't that bad.

He makes the landing party swear not to breathe one word about this to anyone and declares Jim unfit for duty for a month.  
Spock can deal with the ship.  
He... he will pour himself a drink and then take care of Jim. Bones is sure, absolute sure, that his life only turned out like this because he didn't throw up on Jim that fateful day.

  
~3~  
“He's not really talking...” Bones says to nurse Chapel. She watches Jim from the corner of her eye. He's bouncing his leg, his little fingers digging into the edge of the bed. It's clear as day to everyone that he is bored out of his mind.  
“He should be able to speak and he should be constantly asking questions to drive you nuts by now....” he frowns down at the child.

“I believe he does, doctor,” Spock says from the door.

“What?”

“It's just not in a language you understand.”

“I'm a doctor! Not a linguist!” he answers looking at Jim and then at Spock again.

“It's Vulcan,” Spock says.

“He's your responsibility then,” Bones answers. Spock raises an eyebrow and Jim hops from the bio-bed without regard for life or death. He's at Spock's side in an instant, grabbing for Spock's fingers.

“I don't think I would be a good substitute,” Spock says, his fingers safely out of reach. Hands clasped behind his back.

“What? Afraid of a little child?” Bones can’t help but taunt.

“First, that is the captain we are speaking of. Secondly, a child should be by his kind...”

Bones interrupts him: “You mean you're not human enough?”

“That would be correct.”  
Jim says something in Vulcan and Spock answers quietly.

“No one can communicate with him Spock!” McCoy looks frustrated and worried.

“I shall teach him standard then,” Spock answers smoothly, leaving the medibay. Jim follows on his little legs. Spock, McCoy notices, doesn't slow down for the kid to catch up.

  
~4~  
Jim is dressing himself on the floor while he's constantly talking to Uhura in English and Vulcan. Bones only understands half the sentences, but she seems charmed by Jim T. Kirk like she never was before. When he's done changing into pyjamas, Uhura carries him to the bed and tucks him in. She gives him a goodnight kiss and leaves. Bones opens the book of Jim T. Kirk's infamous adventuress (edited for a child and Sulu approved) and begins a new tale of how Jim saved the day and the universe.

“But why couldn't Jim save Vulcan?” Jim asks, his eyes small. He rubs them, desperately trying to stay awake.

“Because not even heroes can save everyone,” Bones answers, brushing away a curl of blond hair.

“When I grow up, I wanna be like Jim,” Jim says.

Bones finds it adorable. “I'm sure you will,” he answers and Jim smiles as he closes his eyes, turning his head into the pillow.

Bones isn't particularly keen to be around when Jim finds out that Vulcan really is gone and that real bad things happen to really good people.  
He hated being the one to tell his daughter, he knows it will be not different this time around. He is only glad there are no pets on board that could suddenly die.

  
~5~  
“Jimmy, what are you doing there?” Scotty asks and Jim looks up from the book he is reading in a corner of the engine room. He likes it here. The soft hum of the ship makes him feel peaceful.

“Reading!” he answers, holding the book up so Scotty can see it. It's an old picture book with big letters and easy words. He found it in Bones office.

“Reading?!”

“Yes,” Jim says.

“Care to read out loud?” Scotty replies. Jim knows Scotty doesn't believe him. Well, he'll see. He goes back to the beginning, because that's were you start says Spock and begins to read.

“When the moon was made of cheese...”

  
~7~  
Jim loves to read, anything and everything, but he loves real books the best. He can read in two languages by now, even if Vulcan words are really tricky to pronounce out loud. Sometimes he knows what a word means and still can't get it across. Then Spock would look at him and Jim would feel kind of stupid until he gets it right and Spock nods his approval.  
Uhura always makes sure to praise Jim when he does something right. She is so much nicer than Spock, Jim thinks. Still.

  
~10~  
He plays chess for the first time with Chekov. He hears Chekov say how that is Spock's favourite game, so Jim asks him to explain the rules and show him how it works. Jim makes Chekov play with him for hours until he wins his first game.  
Later when he lies in bed, his head burrowed in the pillow he asks himself if Chekov maybe let him win? Just so he could get rid of him. He doesn't know why Chekov would do that...maybe, he thinks, yawning, maybe it wasn't that, maybe it was because Chekov wanted Jim to feel good about that game.  
Thing is, Jim does. He likes chess. He is going to make Spock play with him tomorrow.

  
~13~  
Jim never missed kids his age before, but now at 13 he does. He has no one he can talk to about how _angry_ he is all the time. How he hates everything and how irritating Bones and Spock are. In different ways, of course, but fucking still. He smashes something against the wall and watches it shatter into pieces just as the door opens.  
It's Uhura. Fucking beautiful Uhura who doesn't age. At all. No one on this ship seems to age. Not like he does. He has all these memories about how she used to tuck him in, how she gave him a good night kiss, how she felt pressed against him when they were watching something or another. How she smells. Uhura who isn't his mother but somehow raised him to this point. Uhura.

“Out!” he screams at her.

“Jimmy...” she tries, he takes another object from the desk and her eyes go wide.

“Out, get out!”

Uhura leaves. He catches a sad, confused look.  
Uhura.  
He daydreamed about her just a few hours ago. About her thighs, her lips, her breasts. About her hair on his pillow, about his pale hand on her dark skin.  
He leans against the nearest wall and slides down until he sits on the floor, the object – a skull, nicked from McCoy a few years ago – still in his hand. He puts the fragile bone aside carefully and slings his arms around his knees.  
He needs someone to talk and he has no one and he is a freak. For wanting her, knowing she's with Spock (he saw them kiss once), for ageing when no one on this ship does except him. He doesn't exactly know what's worse.  
But right now he would bet on wanting Uhura.

  
~15~  
'When the moon was made of cheese' is his comfort book. It's the one he reads when he is really sad or annoyed or just feeling fucking down. He is feeling down right now. He has been feeling down since breakfast actually, but he doesn't exactly know why either. Bones, of course, says it's puberty. Jim isn't sure. Bones is not telling him things.  
Bones isn't telling him important stuff.  
He puts the book aside and gets up from the floor. He needs to find Spock.

  
~+~  
“So, you're saying that the reason I'm the only one ageing is because I am sick?” he asks. He is not stupid and he knows Spock is not lying. He knows that.

“Yes.”

“I caught some kind of disease on an unknown planet and now I age one year every day, which means I will be dead...in 80 days if I'm lucky...” Jim closes his eyes.

“You will not die...Jim,” Spock says. Jim catches the split second of hesitation before his name. Like Spock doesn't usually call him that. He wondered about it before but not enough to ask about it, even now.

“We all die, Spock. Life is killing us.” His eyes are still closed. Spock's quarters are too warm and he takes off his shirt, leaving him only in his soft worn out T-shirt. It was once Chekov's. He is feeling tired and everything is inviting him to just sleep. It was a long and tiring day.  
Spock keeps silent.

  
~16~  
He wakes up with the feeling that he needs to make the most of his days. He only has days to live a lifetime. Every year is one day, one specific memory in the fast forward life he is living on the Enterprise. He is in his quarters which...not so surprising as he knows Spock is with Uhura and he is sixteen today. He dresses and hurries to medibay.

“So, it's my birthday today,” he says and Bones looks up from some report.

“Your birthday is March 22.”

“Yeah, well, technically...my birthday is every day until I die,” Jim answers.

Bones sighs. “You want something?”

Jim cocks is head as if he's thinking about it and then grins. “I want to know more about me.”

“What else do you want to know, I'm sure Spock told you everything about your condition,” he sounds grumpy.

“I want to know about my mom and dad,” he says and wonders why he didn't think about it before. He should've thought about it. Maybe because squeezing one year into one day just isn't enough and there were so many things to learn.

“Your father is dead, he died a hero...” Bones begins and Jim listens. When Bones finishes, it's really late and he missed dinner, so he goes to the mess and sits down beside Chekov to talk with him about stuff. Chekov is only eighteen. So they are close.  
When he lies in bed that night, impossibly trying not to fall asleep, he realises that Bones never told him a thing about his mom and what she is doing. If she is still alive.

  
~17~  
Bones, Spock and Uhura are on an away mission so he can't ask. He doesn't know how to ask Chevok and besides, they are all really fucking busy, it seems something is going on down on that planet. And it doesn't seem to be something good. He falls as the ship gets hit and he wants to get onto the bridge but is caught by nurse Chapel and confined to his quarters. It sucks to be seventeen.  
He hacks the computer system and reads through all the files they have on his dad and mom and she is still alive. So why doesn't she want to see him? Is it because he is sick? Red alert interrupts his thoughts and he is out his room and in the transporter room in a few minutes. When Spock and Bones appear on the platform, Spock looks horrible, but he is still standing. Uhura looks shocked and Bones white as a sheet and there is green everywhere.

~+~  
When he visits Spock in medibay later, it's empty except for Bones who is doing paperwork in his office.  
Spock looks pale and seems to be asleep and Jim hates everything and everyone and a world, a universe that could do that to Spock. That and so much more. He knows all about Vulcan. He knows Vulcan wasn't saved. He never spoke to Spock about it, but he thinks Spock knows anyway.  
He touches Spock's fingers with his, softly, carefully and then, when nothing happens, grabs onto Spock's hand tightly. Watches him breathe and knows that he is fucked. Because he knows, okay? He knows he is in love with Spock. Who happens to be in love with Uhura.  
He rests his head on the bed and tries to be there for Spock, tries to not fall asleep. It doesn't work. Maybe when he wakes up again he will not feel a thing for Spock. He is a teenager, feelings like that are fleeting.

  
~19~  
He wakes up and starts where he left off the day before. Screaming at Bones and Spock for not telling him. For not telling him that he is, was the captain, that he is Jim T. Kirk. That this is some kind of sick joke. That this is not his life that this can't be his life...that. Everything.  
He is angry at himself as well, because he should have figured this all out a long time ago.

~+~  
He kisses Uhura that evening when she comes over to talk some sense into him and she slaps him and looks shocked for it. He knows he deserves it, because she is with Spock, because he kissed her because he is angry at Spock, because of a lot of reasons. But still.

“Jimmy...” she tries, he can't see her mouth between her fingers. He hates her for calling him 'Jimmy' like she cared, like she didn't lie about everything with all the others. He hates her for being Spock's and not his.

“Out!” he says, calmly. She looks hurt.

“I'm sorry...I didn't...”

“Out! Right fucking now and don't show your face ever again!” He's nineteen and overreacting and wants to hurt something, her, Spock, Bones, himself. Mostly himself by hurting others.

  
~20~  
He spends his whole day/year of being twenty in his room. Thinking, reading and re-reading 'When the moon was made of cheese' and wishing he was dead already. Maybe if he were, maybe he wouldn't get older.  
And they wouldn't have a captain.  
Who was so messed up to try and seduce a woman he works with/ will work with, that is his friend's girlfriend. Fuck, what was he even thinking? That is totally stupid.

  
~21~  
Spock looks totally calm and collected, even if Jim knows he must know what Jim did.

“I'm sorry,” he says and wants to leave, but Spock holds his gaze and he can't. He is twenty-one and still in love with Spock. Fuck. He runs his fingers through his hair and tries not to look away.

“You should be. You acted like a child,” Spock's calm voice says.

“I was a child when I did it.”

“It was only two point...”

“I get it! But it's not like that for me. My life, my _life_ Spock, is made up of images. Just images of being here with you, with Bones, Chekov, Uhura...”

“That is not your life...Jim.”

“That is my life. You can't even call me by my name. I am your captain, you call me captain,” he closes his eyes and switches to Vulcan. He might be one of a few people who aren't Vulcan that can actually speak it like a native.  
“I can't remember the person I was. I can't remember my mother, I can't remember you being pissed at me. You were the one who made me talk, you made me what I am. Partly...it's like...when I was a child, I thought you hung the moon in the dark endless sky. That sky that is just deadly space now.”

Jim isn't sure what he is trying to say here. He just doesn't know. He knows he didn't fall out of being in love with Spock and Uhura. Spock is still silent and the room is too hot. He is sweating. Wiping away the sweat on his forehead.  
“Will I remember this life? Or the other one? Or both?” he asks and doesn't know if he wants to know that.

“I do not know. Would you like to?”

“I don’t know. My life was shitty when I was a child, here, I only have good memories of the time here. This ship...this ship is home,” he admits.

“What does it matter then?” Spock asks.  
Jim shakes his head getting up and making to leave. The difference is that I love you now, he thinks, and you will never know. “Jim?”

“It doesn't, I suppose,” he says and leaves Spock alone. Maybe it really doesn't. Maybe he will forget everything about this life. Snapshots of a life in fast forward. Made up out of sharp moments. Frozen in time.

  
~22~  
“We must know something!” he demands.

Bones shakes his head. “It's all very hush hush,” he answers.

“Three days, Bones three days and I will be okay again. Won’t I?” he asks. He feels afraid for the first time in a long time. And restless.

Bones shakes his head. “I don't know. I hope. I...” he pours himself and Jim a drink and starts again: “You will be okay. You are James T. Kirk. You will always be okay. This ship will always be your home and this crew will always be your family.”  
Jim smiles, drinking the whisky. It burns at the back of his tongue going down. It feels good. He knows Bones means every word.

  
~23~  
For Uhura it's only five days, but for Jim it seems like a lifetime and he realises that he never apologized to her when he sees her in medibay.

“So, I'm sorry,” he says.

“I know,” she answers and doesn't pretend she doesn't know what he's talking about or that she isn't angry at him anymore.

“So will you be pissed off until I die?” he asks and she laughs. She looks surprised that she did.

“Maybe.”

“And if I don't remember?”

“I don't know Jim,” she answers. The name comes naturally to her, unlike Spock.

“My worst year was the one after my nineteenth,” he admits.

“Were you reading the whole day?”

“Yeah..” he says and she nods. “Hey, Uhura?”

“Yes?”

“I meant it. It was wrong because...a lot of reasons, but I meant it.”

“I know,” she says, touching his cheek like she can't help it. “I know.”

  
~24~  
When he wakes up he has no clue what to do with his last day/year. Tomorrow he will be himself again. Whatever that means, because no one can tell who he will be. The only thing that is sure, is that he will not die in the next few months...well, not of old age anyway.  
He gets up, brushes his teeth, puts on clothes after a shower and goes to the mess to eat some breakfast.  
Everyone is staring at him, maybe because they know, maybe because he looks like their captain. Jim doesn't feel like their captain.

~+~  
He kind of hides in the medibay. Kind of, maybe totally. He is hiding in medibay and Bones knows it.

“You can't hide here forever, Jim.”

“Watch me,” he answers.

“For god's sake, I'm a doctor not a babysitter!” Bones says, exasperated.

“You are a doctor and I am sick,” he insists. He is sick and no one knows if he will ever be normal again.

Bones sighs. “Why are you hiding anyway?”

Jim grips the edge of the biobed, his eyes fixed on some point above Bone's head. His leg is dangling. “They are looking at me as if they know me. As if I'm their captain.”

“They know you, you are their captain,” Bones answers.

“Yeah, I look like their captain, but I am only me. Jim Kirk and I know nothing...”

“You know Vulcan,” Bones objects.

Jim smiles. “Yeah...Uhura and Spock can never plot anything anymore...will I lose that?”

“Jim, there is no way of knowing.”

“Right...let me hide out here until tomorrow?”

“As long as there is no emergency.”

“Thanks, Bones.”

  
~25~  
“How are you feeling?” Bones asks.

“Why am I in medibay?” Jim wants to know, sitting up. “I look okay, I feel fine...”

“Good. What do you remember?”

“Unknown planet class M, I think someone hit me with a rock? Why doesn't my head hurt?”

“Amnesia,” Bones mumbles to himself. He isn't sure it's that, as his tricorder doesn't seem to find anything. But he didn't find anything being wrong with Jim 25 days ago, except that he was a baby. Nothing wrong with his brain.

“Really? How long?”

“25 days. Spock took over command.”

“Bet he's pissed he had to deal with all that stuff...” Jim answers with a glint in his eyes.

“He's a Vulcan, they don't do pissed,” Bones says.

“Right,” Jim replies, hoping down and running a hand through his hair. “I'm good to go, right?”

“You know how to run this ship?”

“Did I ever?” he asks back, grinning.

“Out,” Bones says, Jim salutes and leaves. Bones shakes his head. Jim is alright. Jim always is alright, anyway.

~end~


End file.
